Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV) “is pleased to announce excellent results relating to initial metallurgical test work conducted on a composite ore sample from Kochang Mine”…

Well the next disaster set to strike Neil Woodford looks to be Kier Group (KIE) again, for he appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. We know that the rights issue was announced on 30 November and that Neil was on the hook for around £37 million from that. Yet as the shares crashed on the news, Woody was buying yet more, increasing his stake from 14.12% to 15.4% (15 million shares) by 4 December. But the shares now trade below the rights offer price. Uh-oh!

A year ago I was a little early in saying it was time to sell/take profits in Ashtead (AHT) at the twenty quid level...but I can live with this given the good and nicely profitable bump in the share beforehand. Now the share price is just under the seventeen quid level and this has piqued my interest again because the rental of industrial goods is a growth business and Ashtead has a very decent market position in both the UK and especially the US...

Oh dear, Oh dear. At the start of this year Julie "lingerie on expenses" Meyer MBE and her Ariadne Group of ponzis had unpaid bills with Nineteen serperate law firms. Then she hired Shakespeare Martineau to battle brave Henry Gewanter and others. Guess what?  Shakespeare Martineau has filed court documents explianing why it is no longer acting for this wretched woman and they are damning. I publish them in full below. Meyer's new lawyers are a small firm called Cunningtons LLP. I do hope it is not spending all the sums they are invoicing for just yet! The court filing speaks for itself... 

I can’t see Europa Metals (EUZ) shareholders being particularly pleased with the latest news from the company, and even less so with the 22% odd drop that it caused in the share price yesterday. This small AIM company is one that I haven’t exactly been a fan of in the past in its previous incarnation as Ferrum Crescent, and as is often the way with these companies that change name, and even management, not a lot tends to change with regards to performance...

Previously writing on eServGlobal (ESG) in May it was with the company emphasising “the core business benefitting from a much-reduced cost base, which is already showing signs of progress against a refreshed sales approach”. Now a 2:35pm “Trading Update”. Hmmm – on a significant Brexit afternoon, an attempted no-one watching o’clock?...

Hello, Share Bouncers. As the big shares continue to topple on the Brexit mess to end all messes, I still find myself in decent shape. And that’s because penny shares have a mind of their own, not usually affected by dodgy events of the day. Yes, I’m a big believer in the cheapos. My jumbo winner so far this week surged 32% in a day...

Photobooths and ID and laundry and other vending equipment company, Photo-Me (PHTM) has announced results for its half-year ended 31st October 2018 – with the shares currently approaching 10% lower, at sub 100p, in response…

I do like it when a plan comes together and looking at the Polymetal (POLY) share price nestling above eight quid, I am really happy with how my call back in May (and two further write-ups since) loving up the Russia-focused gold and silver producer has progressed…

Having listed on AIM at 100p per share in late 2016 and the shares having recently slid towards 80p, a half-year trading update from geotechnical engineering company Van Elle Holdings (VANL) includes “new contract starts have progressively gained momentum”, “gross margins have continued to improve” and “the positive momentum exiting the first half has continued into the start of the third quarter and the group's orderbook at 31 October 2018 was 16% ahead of last year at £32m”. So why have the shares responded further lower, below 80p?...

Markets are being roiled by politics, soiling themselves on trade war panics, scared witless by mounting populism and it's pay-off time for massive policy mistakes and the waking up to the horrendous unintended consequences of the last 10-years of monetary experimentation and over-regulation and the working out that every single financial asset (by which I mean listed stocks and bonds) is price-distorted, will be painful for the unprepared. In fact; every aspect of modern finance is distorted. Sentiment is bruised which means the global economy is vulnerable to being pushed over the edge as the current fears of recession in 2019 become a self-fulfilling prophesy...

Whilst Tom Winnifrith enjoys an early morning glass of ouzo upon confirmation that MySquar (MYSQ) has finally departed the Casino amid allegations of fraud and someone’s fingers in the till, there is another party going on at Deputy Sheriff Towers: fully-listed Interserve (IRV) has finally confessed that its shareholders are going to get clobbered. Indeed, the shares this morning fell way below their nominal price of 10p in the scramble to get out and currently sit 47% down on the day at around 12p...

I had far too much to drink last night. But it really was not my fault. Thus as I travel across Greece today and back to Bristol I feel a bit worse for wear. In this podcast I comment on Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) in light of yesterday's corrupt journalism bearcast. I look at Andalas (ADL) forced to make a belated statement by this website's expose on Saturday HERE. I cover Big Sofa (BST) and LB Shell (LBP) another AIM Casino dog whose sole purpose was to support the lifestyles of crony capitalists.

Several people have asked me about Thomas Cook (TCG) recently where there is certainly an element of déjà vu from seven years ago. I was short then on the basis that the company was insolvent and was waiting patiently for the shares to go from 10p to zero...

Revolution Bars Group (RBG) is a company that caught my eye a while back, but at the time it was for the wrong reasons as I’d noticed that the share price seemed to be on a steady downwards trajectory. In terms of this, nothing has really changed and it has been making new lows around the 100p area, losing around a third of its value in the past year – which included a brief spike to around 175p in January. This is one where there could be an argument for waiting for the trend to turn positive, if indeed it does from here, but with the market cap back around the £50 million level I can see value in buying here...

I have been over-bullish about gold ever since it popped its top at around $1800 per oz in the aftermath of the financial crisis and quantitative easing (ie printing money) became all the rage. But rather than sell out, I have held firm. At the time I seemed to be wrong, but with what should be a momentous week for the UK about to hit us, I see the gold price is up a tad at just shy of $1250 per oz...

Hello, Share Rascals. For a change, let me steer away from my topical suggestions on which shares to buy and sell in the run-up to Christmas. Because there are still big companies which are not really affected by any Yule rush to buy. One of them is Unilever (ULVR).

I start with news of a washing panic at the Greek Hovel. Then I look at why the mainstream financial press are part of the problem not the solution to stockmarket over-promotes and indeed outright criminality. In the podcast I look specifically at The Times on Neil Woodford and at The Sunday Times on Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) and Midas in the Mail on Sunday on the IPO of AJ Bell (AJB)

My favourite deadwood press article this week is all about the comment from a reader below it, rather than the article itself.  I talked about Domino's Pizza (DOM) back in August and basically said that I would only get warmed up at 250p odd a share.  Well we are nearly there and - superficially - not too much has changed.  The UK franchise keeps on growing aided by that near omnipresent 'official food of everything' advertising, various Scandi markets remain workable...and angst continues at the managerial and franchisee levels.  

We have commented here on ShareProphets on the recent sales of shares in BTG (BTG) by Neil Woodford’s Woodford Investment Management. Given that BTG is the subject of a cash offer of 840p per share is seems a little odd that he is offloading stock before the offer completes, especially with the shares trading at around  825p – but then, he does have some pressing cash issues of his own. But what is even more odd is his irrevocable undertaking to accept the offer, for it appears to have been given over a rather small portion of the shares he was actually holding.